Four wings good?

I usually associate the first damselflies of the year with fern fronds, because they use them as perches to sun themselves and as launching pads for a leap to catch their prey. This year, however, the ferns are still unfurling and the damsels are having to resort to Bramble for resting on. This is a female Large Red Damselfly:

Female Large Red Damselfly

The standard definition of Diptera, or flies, is that they have only two wings. This is true, but only to a certain extent. Flies do indeed have only two wings in the conventional sense, but they also have two modified wings: the halteres. This shot shows the two halteres - located just behind the large, main wings - of a Cranefly:

Halteres of Cranefly

The halteres vibrate at roughly 45 degrees from the axis of the fly, but at 90 degrees to each other. Due to the coriolis effect, they act as gyroscopes and transmit information about rotation to help the fly to stabilise during manoeuvres. Bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, dragonflies and many other insects have 4 wings, but flies generally have more manoeuvering and hovering capability due to their combination of two wings with two halteres.

When I'm looking for moths at night, I often find other insects attracted to the light. This Cockchafer was hanging on my wall last night:

Cockchafer beetle

The Cockchafer has a very interesting lifecycle: the larvae live underground for three or four years, and the adults tend to be seen more frequently in three or four year cycles. There appears to be another cycle of perhaps 30 years, when the beetles are seen in huge numbers. The specimen in the picture above appears to have lost its right antenna.

The micromoth in the next shot has a glorious name: Schreckensteinia festaliella. 

This moth always lands with its middle legs outstretched and pointing upwards. I suppose with all those spikes, it must be the only safe place to put them.

As I have mentioned before (and will doubtless mention again), Pug moths are rather difficult to identify to species. The Foxglove Pug can be separated from the very similar Toadflax Pug by the 'notch' in the outer edge of the dark bar, as indicated by the arrow: 

Foxglove Pug, showing notch in wing bar

Size and timings are also different between the two species, but without a comparison, and given the very early season we're having, we have to act on the clues we are left with.

'foreign' trip

I'm just back from a few days in my native Scotland, and it was very interesting to compare the wildlife in my old stamping ground with that on my local patch.

This Comma flew in front of me as I walked along Haddington Place in Edinburgh:

(Yes, my camera is to hand at all times).

I had just emerged from MacNaughton's bookshop where I bought a pristine copy of the wonderful "Things a Lady Would Like to Know": a cookbook from 1875 (although it's inscribed 1874). Here's a shot of the cover:

It has recipes for complete dinner menus for each day of the year, plus special banquets for each month, so perhaps 2000 recipes in all. Anyway.....

The place where I spent my teenage years has a very interesting set of hoverflies: perhaps more species close together than I would find at home. This is Myathropa florea, which needs older broad-leaf trees for its larvae:

Leucozona glaucia is our only hoverfly with blue patches on the abdomen:

On my patch, this would be Syrphus ribesii, but I wouldn't like to take this identification any closer than Syrphus sp. without some more detailed examination:
A decent shot of Xylota segnis. These run very quickly over leaves, picking up bits of pollen as they move:

And Cheilosia illustrata, which I have only ever found on umbellifers. This was on Hogweed:

The fungal season is about to start, and I found quite a few specimens of Sweet Vernal Grass which had been infected with the rather toxic Ergot:

This is the very common puffball Lycoperdon perlatum:

Back home, a couple of new moths came to light. First the rather handsome Rosy Minor - Mesoligia literosa, which feeds on various grasses:

And a pristine specimen of the Foxglove Pug, which feeds on......Foxgloves:

Busy time

The burst of good weather has produced lots of new photographs (which bring associated research), and I have been working on a new project doing wildlife surveys with schools in the area, so things are a little busy.

The leafmining fly Agromyza minuscula mines Meadow Rue as well as the Aquilegia in my garden. I have no Meadow Rue near my patch - it tends to be coastal near here - so the flies have travelled quite some distance to find this alternative food source.

Foxgloves tend to creep up on you. One day, they're a rosette of leaves, the next they're in full bloom the whole length of the spike:

Last week, I showed a male Bombus lucorum; this one has found a new queen:

I'm amazed at the size difference. The males will now die off, and the new queens will go back to their nests and act as workers until next year when they go off to make their own new nest. The queen is certainly Bombus Lucorum s-s, which confirms my belief that I have both B. lucorum s-s and Bombus cryptarum on my patch.

Meadow Vetchling has added a lot of yellow to the verges, now. The various Cinquefoils are next, followed by various St. John's Worts and the Birds-foot Trefoil.

I often think the people who gave names to various species in the 1700's and 1800's had a sense of humour (or they needed some light relief from their intense work). This is the wasp-mimicking hoverfly Sericomyia silentis, which has to be the noisiest hoverfly around. It's certainly louder than the bumblebee:

There are plenty of moths around at the moment (sorry, Weaver). This is a male Golden Swift:

I did quite a bit of research on this image because I have often seen these bright orange phoretic mites, and always on Limoniidae Crane Flies:

Limoniidae are often aquatic as larvae, but some feed on fungi. These phoretic mites are also known to feed on fungal spores, so it looks like these mites (which belong to the spider family) are simply using the Limoniidae as transport between fungi.

Finally, some more moths that came to light:

Clouded-bordered Brindle - Apamea crenata - which feeds on grasses as a larva:
Common Marbled Carpet - Chloroclysta truncata - which feeds on woody plants:
And Dark Arches - Apamea monoglypha - another grass feeder:
New to me.

I also updated my species index.

Thundery light

********** STOP PRESS **********

This shot was taken about 15 minutes ago. On 30th May I showed the immigrant Painted Lady butterflies. Tonight I found their larvae on Thistles on the hedgerow. The adults flew 2500 miles to lay their eggs on my patch. How exciting.


Last night was very humid and thundery. Lots of moths and other insects came to light:

First, one of the 'Minors'. I think these can't be reliably separated, so I'll call it Oligia sp. Quite small, at around 12mm. long.


Now a couple of Pugs. These are a nightmare to identify, but let's see how I go with these.

Foxglove Pug - Eupithecia pulchellata:


And Wormwood Pug - Eupithecia absinthiata:

Any and all corrections gratefully received.

And finally, the wonderful Green Lacewing - Chrysoperla carnea.